Compendium Sabriel
by Symmet
Summary: Short stories/ficlets having to do with Sam and Gabriel that didn't fit into any multi-chapter stories. Will be added to over time.
1. Hunger

_"Hunger is a good discipline. You learn from it." - Ernest Hemingway_

_..._

Sam sat there for a good ten minutes, almost kneeling, in the center of the room, knees against the floor, head bowed, blood soaking into his jeans.

Blood soaking into everywhere.

He felt it in his hair, clumps of curdled death, a splash across his cheek, drying quickly, crusty and crackling, slippery between his hand and the hilt of the knife, but _coagulated_, sticking to his fingers, keeping them, too.

He regarded the massacre almost detachedly, all of his emotional energy being expended on not moving, clamping his teeth and clenching his jaw just to stop his tongue from darting out, a white prison. Unable to breath through his nose because it made his stomach roll, because he suddenly felt it curling in his muscles and thoughts.

_Hunger_

It coated his arm, drenching through the fabric, and his skin could be bubbling for all he knew.

Sam suddenly found a scintilla of energy, began to struggle to his feet.

It hung strong on him, making him desultory, gluing him to the floor. It wasn't syrup or honey. It was molasses.

It made wet, protesting, squelching noises as he dragged himself up, staggered a step forward. He had been breathing minutely through his mouth, but now he was breathing heavily through his nose.

The _smell_ bombarded him. He felt the urge to wretch, to drink, the hunger and disgust susurrous in his mind, making his hands shake. He felt the spasms of gagging coming on.

Luckily he hadn't eaten anything recently.

The hunger rushed over him.

Ok, maybe not "lucky".

_I can't do this_, he thinks in calm hysteria.

_No._

Before he can make the conscious effort to stop himself, because he's so tired, and afraid, because he'd spent so many years automatically doing it, every night before he went to sleep.

He prays.

Back before he knew, _knew_ they were real, he rarely prayed for something. Once in a blue moon, when he was worried bone-deep about Dean or Dad, or, more recently, prayed that it was all a dream, first when Jess died, then Dean.

He hasn't prayed since the night Dean died, actually.

The voice melts off the walls, into his brain, making him close his eyes.

"_Sam?_"

He hadn't been thinking. Why, what was wrong with him? What was he doing? Why?_ Why?_

The hand tentatively reaches out to the younger brother. Sam can't see him - his head is bowed again, too much effort expended on not giving in. He doesn't realize now how strange it is that of all the beings to hear a prayer, this is the one that intercepts it. He still flinches at the ghost of the touch.

The trickster.

If he wasn't so preoccupied with not doing anything, he would be screaming.

Because of course the Trickster knew.

He'd been the one to "prepare" Sam for Dean's "departure", after all.

Another wave of nausea washes over him, and he doubles over, bending like blade of grass underfoot. He won't give in, though.

He can't.

"what are you fighting it for?"

The question is confused, almost exasperated, sounding annoyed by the perceived stupidity - or perhaps by how inconsequential the effort was.

Sam grits out a breath, somewhere deep in his brain the synapses for laughter fail to ignite in irony.

"I can't"

"wrong, buddy boy, you can, and you probably will."

The answer was too quick, too unwilling to see something else. It doesn't matter, anyways. Sam has bigger things to worry about than a nervous trickster in denial. Sam curls his fingers into fists, knits his resolve back together.

Pushes himself back up, smearing blood between his fingers and the ground.

"Then I _won'_t."

He makes it halfway across the room when everything goes black.

Wakes up back at the motel, knife gleaming on his nightstand.

Next to it is a lollipop.


	2. Cavity

**cav·i·ty** /kavitē/ - noun - _an empty space within a solid object, in particular the human body._

mid 16th cent.: from French _cavité_ or late Latin _cavitas_, from Latin _cavus_ 'hollow.'

...

Dean didn't know it, but Sam completely avoided sweets after Gabriel died.

It wasn't his fault - a brotherly codependency could only go so far in such matters. He noticed Sam falling silent or staring off into the distance more often, but it wasn't something that became more frequent - it worried him, yeah, but it became clear he wasn't losing Sam to whatever that was, and so he left well alone.

He wasn't going to be a complete hypocrite about it. It's not like he was the poster boy for sharing feelings or bonding or whatever. Besides, it wasn't as if they had any specific reasons not to be depressed at any given point in time. Things were technically getting worse, what with all the natural disasters and demons and angels and crap.

And if Sam got quiet or pensive sometimes, in the sort of way one does when thinking of the past, Dean wasn't going to mess with him, and he wasn't going to pry. Sam kept those things close.

It could be anyone's death grabbing at his thoughts; it could be any of the shit they went through on a daily basis.

The Apocalypse, the angels trying to do who knows what to them (besides _God_, who was MIA as far as anyone knew), the death, _ACTUAL_ Death, the horsemen in general, demons, monsters, _Lucifer_, that kid they watched have his eyes torn out an hour ago.

It could be _anything_.

Anything could be making him contemplative. If he chose the grim reality of this thoughts to cold, hard liquor, Dean wouldn't interfere just because he chose the latter. He didn't ignore it, of course, just let it be.

Besides, it wasn't as if Sam ever advocated a sweet tooth - he was practically a rabbit if you looked at what he ordered when they went out to eat. (_The hell would someone order a plate of only alfalfa sprouts for? Seriously._) It made Dean a little queasy to think it, but the closest thing to red meat Sam had ever consumed regularly was demon blood.

And that was off the menu, now.

Anyways, Sam stopped eating sweets. It only took Dean so long because he doesn't generally share his pie.

So when he does offer it, Sam _literally_ isn't supposed to say no.


	3. Lucky Strike

The charm on Sam's wrist immediately caught Gabriel's attention. He'd been about to tell the human that their brothers had flown off to who knew where, _Paris_, he was willing to bet, since Cas was adorably obvious like that, to work on "_destroying some wendigos_" as Dean had said.

Of course, when you're an archangel, you notice things, like cursed charms.

Especially when they're on someone you consider a friend.

"Samwise! Get that thing off!"

Immediately he was standing infront of the startled hunter, had grabbed his wrist.

"Hey, wait, no! Gabe, I know what it is!" The human says, just a tad annoyed.

Gabriel pauses but scowls, "And you know that there's a price for this sort of stuff? You get lucky for a day, and unlucky the next. You probably won't survive-"

"I already paid the one day debt" Sam huffed, waiting until Gabriel blinked and then released him. Something inside tapped a little, upset that he hadn't noticed a luck magic hovering over the human, no matter how sporadically he visited.

"Whadoya need it for anyways, Sambean? I could help you with any gambling, _ooh_, or pranking, if you like-"

Sam leaned in and kissed him, and Gabriel stilled as the hunter pressed close.

_Oh Sammy_, he thinks, _this magic doesn't work on archangels_. But he's not about to ruin the mood.

* * *

Gabriel decides just saying it out loud will rush the situation along, because despite his guilt at having not set things straight earlier, he's not gonna lie in bed with the human and keep it to himself for however long Sam expected the magic to work.

He's not even gonna berate the human for that because _really_? Hoodoo on an _archangel_? You couldn't kill one with the colt you _revere_ so much but some second-rate charm is gonna do the trick?

He contemplates how to phrase it for a moment, finally scrapping his delicate application of words because that will probably mortify Sam way more, anyways.

And maybe a tiny part of him wants to relish Sam's expression when he says, "Sam, hate to break it to ya, but that thing's bust on me. I'm immune to hoodoo, kid."

Just the barest moment before that hits home and the hunter sits upright in alarm, "**_What!?_**"

"Yup. That was _allll_ me." Okay, so maybe he's slathering it on a little heavy, but he knows that it's gonna be mega awkward otherwise, because... well because he's going to totally take advantage of this if he's not actively attempting to avoid it.

Sam groans and drags his hands over his face, "Of course. You _would_ be that easy." His hair sticks up and Gabriel ignores the small urge to pat it down. _Not relevant for the present situation_, he chides himself.

"Hey!" He says in playful indignance, "_Who_ was going to use hoodoo to get lucky?"

Sam sighed, "So the chances of you magically forgetting this in the morning have just dropped marginally, haven't they?"

Gabriel figured Sam was taking it all in stride, which he mentally applauded. He sat up, "Unless you got some Dinousian wine up your sleeves - which I know you don't, because I was very involved in the clothing removal process - yeah, pretty much."

* * *

"Sammster, what's wrong?"

But Sam just shakes his head, and yeah, Gabriel has a right to ask, but suddenly he's getting the archangelic premonition that maybe this is... he's not sure.

He's not sure.

It's not some fling, even though Sam wants it to be like one - because Gabriel hits on him - and Dean, and yeah, occasionally Cas, just to see Dean's face caught between morbidly disgusted and jealous - and he doesn't know, but it feels more serious than Sam is letting on and that means he won't talk about it.

Because Sam preaches emotional talks but he only excels at it in comparison to _Dean_.

Really he's just difficult until you try to get something out of the _older_ Winchester, who then makes the entire task _impossible_.

If this was serious, Sam wasn't going to share. And Gabriel isn't surprised, because Lucifer can do that to you - because Sam had had to keep everything of himself even closer after the Apocalypse had started, and maybe it was over, but he hadn't even had much of a chance to get back to _normal_ hunter levels of paranoid.

...

He feels a moment of guilt for what he's about to do, but hey, Sam had tried to influence him, too, even if it didn't work.

"Sam." He whispers, pressing energy into his breath, pressing his palm against Sam's skin, at the base of his hunter's neck. He almost flinches as Sam's eyes widen in surprise, shock, alarm, recognition, anger, before the hunter relaxes into him.

"What is it?"

Sam shakes his head into Gabriel's shoulder, "I can't really say."

Gabriel's already pushed the boundaries by putting a truth spell on the human, so mind reading isn't really an option.

"Please?" He tries, almost for the hell of it.

Sam looks up at him in surprise. Then he sags and sits up. Gabriel kind of regrets the loss of contact but doesn't move to stop him, instead sits up with him.

"Can I forget this in the morning?" the distressed human sighs into his hands.

"Depends on if you really want to." Gabriel says almost warily, "What's eating at you?"

He tentatively puts a hand on Sam's forearm.

For a moment he doesn't think the human will answer, even with the spell, but in reality it was just pushing the words, heavy, over the edge.

"Oh you know, just the usual," Sam says miserably, not looking at him.

"May have fallen in love with an archangel, nothing big."


End file.
